I had to go off to the tip today to throw away all the rubbish I have been accumulating at the side of the house. On the way back I decided to have a look at a couple of places in Broadfield I have not had much of a chance to visit.

First of all I went up to the Mosque. The best time to visit is a Friday when the main prayer session is. Normally I am up in London on Fridays, and indeed all the other weekdays, so I decided to take advantage of having a day off.

There used to be complaints about the traffic and parking generated by the mosque, but it didn’t seem too bad today considering the number of visitors. There were plenty of traffic cones to deter parking on the verges, a couple of uniformed PCSOs outside and the police CCTV van parked next door, which might explain it.

A chap called Nassar gave me a tour of the building, and showed me all the sights. While I was there I bumped into Paul from the Respect party and Jim, one of the local police who does a lot of the community relations stuff.

There is a lot of activity up at the mosque right now. Apart from Ramadan fast approaching, they have some elections coming up for positions within the mosque council, which is quite a big deal. The local council are providing polling stations for them, and the CCVS, a couple of county councillors and our MP will all be acting as observers at the elections.

I get the impression there will be more votes cast in their internal elections than will be cast in our borough council elections next year. (Average turnout below 15% in Broadfield) After leaving the mosque I went up to see the Sure Start building. I have not seen it close up since it was built. At weekends the access to the place has been blocked to cars (anti-traveller measures?) and its not in a location I tend to be walking near. I didn’t go inside, obviously, but it looks very impressive from outside.